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A Danger to the Community?

By Paula Span May 12, 2010 11:20 amMay 12, 2010 11:20 am

So much for the stereotype of those nice, welcoming Minnesotans.

In Woodbury, Minn., a Twin Cities suburb, a proposed assisted living facility that would specialize in dementia care has run into angry opposition from some neighbors in a surrounding residential development called Stonemill Farms.

This is not, in itself, unheard of. Concerns about things like parking and traffic do sometimes surface when communities contemplate new assisted living projects. What’s unusual about Settler’s Pointe, a 45-unit facility that would replace a mostly empty retail strip, is that a number of its adversaries describe it as a potential threat to their children.

We’ll pause here for a moment to allow New Old Age readers, so many of whom have up-close experience with parents with dementia and with specialized dementia dwellings, to say: What?

We’ll also pause to acknowledge that only about 50 people signed the petition asking the city to reject the project, and about 75 showed up at a community meeting to oppose it. Stonemill Farms has close to 600 new homes, many clearly occupied by folks who don’t see the old and sick, even those in the 15 apartments slated for people who need “enhanced” care, as a danger to the elementary school across the street or the day care center next door (whose owner favors the new residence).

But the Stonemill Farmers opposed to this project sound scared. In a raft of e-mail messages to the city’s planning department, which made them available to me, they express their shock at finding a “high-density,” “locked-down facility” in their new residential development — perhaps not grasping that such buildings are secured not to protect neighborhoods from marauding old people, but to keep wandering dementia patients from endangering themselves. And maybe the neighbors don’t understand that 45 units, with one staff person for each five residents in the “enhanced” apartments and one to 10 in the others, constitutes a fairly modest size for an assisted living facility, not to mention a high level of supervision.

The e-mailers talk about traffic, about how a dementia care facility is “not a good fit” for a development that expected a coffee shop and a dry cleaner on that site.

But more than anything, they talk about their children.

“Would you want your young children to be exposed to potentially physically or sexually aggressive individuals on a daily basis?” one couple asked. “There are laws against sexual predators being allowed this close to children, but these people are considered potentially dangerous as well.”

Children “may see/hear inappropriate things from the residents of the facility,” a mother wrote.

Parents argued that uninhibited residents would be disrobing, hitting and biting and kicking, and urinating outdoors — all within their children’s view. Would you want your 9-year-old walking past that building on her way to school each day?, a mother asked. Or a 12-year-old riding past on his bike en route to the playground?

“Please can you tell me you asked the developer how much this is worth to him as I cannot put a price on my Childs’ [sic] life,” a mother wrote, sounding distraught even in an e-mail.

So what’s actually going on here? Has a weakened real estate market intensified the normal homeowner preoccupation with property values? Are many Stonemill Farmers (some residents wrote in support, let the record show) simply too young themselves to have had much experience with dementia? Too young to foresee the benefit, as their parents age, of one day having a residence for them nearby?

Woodbury’s mayor, Bill Hargis, agreed that youth might explain the reaction. “They haven’t been exposed to Alzheimer’s,” he told me in an interview. “It’s just fear of the unknown.”

So here’s what is known, courtesy of Beth Kallmyer, a clinical social worker and for nearly a decade an executive at the Alzheimer’s Association. Dementia affects its victims differently. A minority will react to their confusion with belligerence, sometimes pushing or hitting or lashing out. “But typically it happens to the people intimately providing care, giving them a bath or attempting to feed them,” Ms. Kallmyer said, not to passing children on bikes outside the locked doors.

As for concerns about disturbing sights or sounds, “folks are going to be inside, mostly,” Ms. Kallmyer added. “If they’re outside, they’ll be supervised.” Hearing “a lot of misconceptions,” she urged worried parents to call the association’s staffed 24-hour hotline (800-272-3900) for more information.

The developer, Joseph Baumann, who served as guardian for an uncle with Alzheimer’s, wants to proceed with the project. But while Woodbury’s planners have recommended approving the facility, the town council could nix it.

At a community meeting, Mr. Baumann recalled, an opponent argued that children might see Settler’s Pointe residents naked in front of the windows.

“We’ll tint the windows,” he replied. But that didn’t seem to help.

Paula Span is the author of “When the Time Comes: Families With Aging Parents Share Their Struggles and Solutions.”

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About

Thanks to the marvels of medical science, our parents are living longer than ever before. Most will spend years dependent on others for the most basic needs. That burden falls to their baby boomer children. The New Old Age blog explored this unprecedented intergenerational challenge. Paula Span will continue to write New Old Age columns twice monthly at nytimes.com/health and the conversation will continue on Twitter (@paula_span) and Facebook.